Understanding the Connectivity Services Director User Interface

Figure 1 illustrates the main components of the interface.

This topic describes:

Connectivity Services Director Banner

Use the Connectivity Services Director banner, shown in Figure 2, to select the working mode. You can also use the Connectivity Services Director banner to perform other global tasks, such as setting up your preferences or accessing Junos Space. Table 1 describes the functions available to you on the banner.

Figure 2: Connectivity Services Director Banner

View Pane

On the View pane, Connectivity Services Director provides you with a unified, hierarchal view of your networks in the form of a tree that is expandable and collapsible. By selecting both a view and a node from the tree, you indicate the scope over which you want an operation or task to occur. For example:

• By selecting the MX240 node in Device View, you indicate that the scope for a task is all MX240 routers in your network.

You can perform the following actions on the View pane:

• Displaying Devices Using Various Network Views

• Filtering the Network Tree

• Expanding or Collapsing Nodes in the Network Tree

• Searching the Network Tree

Displaying Devices Using Various Network Views

Use the selection box on the Connectivity Services Director banner to choose one of the following network views:

• Dashboard View—This is a customizable view that provides information about your network. You can select and add monitoring widgets to the Dashboard View based on your requirements. This is the default view that opens when you log in to Connectivity Services Director.

• Device View—Devices are organized by device type: routers. Within each device type, devices are organized by device model. For example, all models of MX240 routers are grouped together under one node in the tree.

• Custom Group View—If you have defined one or more custom groups, Connectivity Services Director displays these custom groups in this view. You can manually add devices to a custom group or define a rule to automatically add devices to the custom group after they are discovered in Connectivity Services Director. The devices are grouped under each custom group.

• Topology View—This view enables you to view a graphical representation of the discovered devices in your network, organized by groups or zones. The topology map window displays important link and node properties. Links are color coded according to utilization. You can also view physical and logical connectivity between various discovered interconnected devices.

• Service View—You can create services, policies, and filters for devices that are managed by Connectivity Services Director. The service templates and attributes for services, policies, and filters help you classify and control the manner in which packets must be handled by the various services.

• Chassis View (accessible from the View Physical Inventory page of Device View)—You can view a high-level, graphical representation or an image of the chassis. It indicates the state of the interfaces. If the administrative and operational statuses of the interface are up, the interface is displayed in green. If the administrative status is down, the interface is displayed in grey. If the administrative status is up and operational status is down, the interface is displayed in red. The image is a replica of the device chassis. If you are connected to a virtual chassis, the image includes all the member routers of the virtual chassis. The chassis view also displays a count of alarms generated in the system; major alarms are displayed in red, and minor alarms in orange. The purpose of the view is to try and provide a comprehensive view of the health and status of the deployed devices across the network.

Filtering the Network Tree

To make it easier for you to focus on selected aspects of your network, you can apply predefined filters to your network tree so that only nodes and devices that meet the filter criteria are shown. For example, you can apply a filter so that only devices in a specific building are shown in the network tree in all views.

1. From the View pane, click the filter icon:
   

   The Filters dialog box is displayed.

2. In the Filters dialog box, click Show available filters.

   The Available Filters section of the dialog box appears.

3. Under Available Filters, click the tab for the view you want to use to define your filter. For example, if you want to filter on devices—that is, show only certain types of devices—click the Device tab.

   The filters that you can apply are listed below the Device tab.

4. To select a filter, click its associated plus icon.

   The filter appears on the Selected Filters section of the dialog box. You can repeat steps 3 and 4 until you have selected all the filters you want to apply.

5. Click Apply.

   The Filters dialog box closes and the filters are applied. The filter icon changes appearance to indicate that filters have been applied:

   

To remove a filter, click the filter icon, click the trash can next to the filter on the Selected Filters list, and click Apply.

Expanding or Collapsing Nodes in the Network Tree

To expand a node in the network tree, select the node and then click the Expand All icon:

The node you selected and any child nodes under the selected node are expanded to show their contents.

Similarly, to collapse a node in the network tree, select the node and then click the Collapse All icon (next to the Expand All icon). The node you selected is collapsed and no nodes under it are shown.

Searching the Network Tree

To quickly find and select a device or device group, use the search function.

To perform a search, type three or more characters in the Search box and click the Search icon, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Performing Search on the View Pane

Connectivity Services Director finds the first instance of a node whose name contains the characters. To find the next instance, click the right arrow.

Searches are not case-sensitive: a search on wla115 and one on WLA115 return the same results. You can also use wildcard characters in search strings.

Tasks Pane

The Tasks pane is available in every mode and lists tasks specific to that mode. In addition to changing according to the mode selected, tasks listed in the Tasks pane can change. For example, some tasks are appropriate only at the device level and thus appear only when you have selected an individual device. Clicking a task brings up task-specific content in the main window. In general, to perform a task in Connectivity Services Director, you navigate to the task.

Alarms

The Alarms bar that is displayed at the bottom of your browser window provides a quick summary of how many critical, major, minor, and informational alarms are currently active in the network and is visible in every mode.

To display more information about alarms, click the alarm count or the Alarms bar. You are automatically placed in Fault mode and the Fault mode monitors are displayed.

Main Window or Workspace

The main window or workspace displays content relevant to the mode, scope, and task you have selected. When you log in to Connectivity Services Director, the main window displays the dashboard. The dashboard enables you to allow the users that are assigned roles as operators to quickly monitor health and status of the managed devices. The sections or frames on the dashboard allows the operator to understand the device problem or fault at the macro level (comprehensive and widespread network health and status) and the micro level (individual device health and status). The health representation of the devices can be customized based on the monitoring properties defined.

Tables in Connectivity Services Director

Tables are used throughout Connectivity Services Director to display data. These tables share common features. By becoming familiar with these features, you can navigate and manipulate tabular data quickly and efficiently.

The following sections describe:

• Moving and resizing columns

• Navigating pages

• Displaying the column drop-down menu

• Sorting on a column

• Hiding and exposing columns

• Searching table contents

• Filtering table contents

Moving and Resizing Columns

You can reposition and resize columns in a table. To move a column, drag the column head to the new location. Connectivity Services Director displays a green check mark when you mouse over a valid column location. To resize a column, mouse over the edge of a column until the cursor becomes two vertical lines with outward arrows. Drag the column width to the new size.

Navigating Pages

Paging controls at the bottom of an applicable page allow you to navigate the entries on the pages when the inventory is too large to fit on one page. Using these controls, you can go to a specific page, navigate to the next or previous page, navigate to the first or last page of the inventory, or refresh the inventory view.

Displaying the Column Drop-Down Menu

A drop-down menu is available from each column head, allowing you to perform additional operations on columns. To display the column drop-down menu, mouse over the column head. A down arrow appears. By clicking the arrow, you display the drop-down menu, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Column Drop-Down Menu

Sorting on a Column

You can sort the table on a column by clicking the column head—each click changes the direction of the sort. In addition, you can use the Sort Ascending and Sort Descending options on the drop-down menu.

When you sort on a column, a small arrow appears next to the column name to indicate that the table is being sorted by the column and the direction of the sort.

Connectivity Services Director uses a lexical sort for tabular data that is not strict numeric data, which means that data such as IP addresses do not sort in numerical sequence, as shown in Table 2.

Hiding and Exposing Columns

You can customize your tables by hiding or exposing columns. This way, you can choose to see only relevant information.

To hide or expose columns, display the drop-down menu for any column head and mouse over the Columns option, as shown in Figure 4. Select the check box beside a column in the drop-down menu to expose it. Clear the check box beside a column to hide it.

As a general rule, Connectivity Services Director displays all columns in a table by default. However, some tables have more columns than can fit easily within the page. In these tables, some columns are hidden by default.

Searching Table Contents

You can search for specific data in large tables by using search criteria.

To search for an item in a table, enter the search term in the text box. Select ANY for Connectivity Services Director to search for the term in all columns in the table. Every table has a predefined default column that the system searches; before it proceeds to search other columns.

You can also choose to search a particular column for a term. Connectivity Services Director displays a list of all the columns in a table. To search a particular column for a term, select that column for the list.

Note: When you enter a search expression, note the following: You must add a back slash “\” if you want to use the following special characters in the search text: + ~ && || ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ “ ~ * ? : \ Field names are case-sensitive. For example, if you have a few systems running on Junos OS 12.3 Release 4.5, then os: 12.3R4.5 returns search results, whereas OS: 12.3R4.5 does not return search results. This is because the field name that is indexed is os and not OS. If you want to search for a term that includes a space, enclose the term within double quotation marks. For example, to search for all devices that are synchronized (that is, In Sync), enter “In Sync” in the Search field. You must append "*" if you want to search using partial keywords. Otherwise, the search returns 0 (zero) matches or hits.

You can filter search results by specifying one or more search terms. Connectivity Services Director uses the AND operator for each search term that you enter. Connectivity Services Director lists the search results in the table, depending on the search criteria that you specified.

1. Enter MX480 as the search term in the text box.

   The device model is saved as a search term.

2. From the list that appears, select to search the Platform column.

   Connectivity Services Director lists all the MX480 routers in your network.

3. Enter 14.1 as the search term after the comma separator in the text box.

   The Junos OS release is saved as a search tearm.

4. From the list, select to search from the OS Version column.

   Connectivity Services Director lists all the MX480 routers in your network that are running Junos OS Release 14.1.

Filtering Table Contents

For large tables, it is helpful to be able to sort data to show only relevant entries. When you mouse over the Filters option on the column drop-down menu, a fill-in box appears where you can type filter criteria. If you type a text string and click Go, entries that do not contain the text string (filter criterion) are removed from the table. A red asterisk appears on the column head to indicate that the column has been filtered. To restore all entries to the table, clear the Filters option.

1. Mouse over the right side of the IP Address column head to expose the down arrow.
2. Click the arrow to display the column drop-down menu.
3. Mouse over Filters to display the Filter field.
4. Type 192.168.1. in the field and click Go.

Only the devices in the 192.168.1.0 subnet are shown.